Pastoral Relief and Retreat

I am Pastor at Poquonock Community Church, Congregational (CCCC) in Windsor, CT. My wife Jama and I live in Wetherfield, CT.
We'd like to invite you to Terre Haute -- High Ground -- That's what Jama and I call the retreat space on our property. We offer free intentional get-away retreats. We'll feed you and house you and give you space to be with the Lord. All are welcome; no questions asked.
This blog is my daily devotional journal. I write it because it is so easy to go for weeks without ever taking the time to be alone with God. Writing helps me develop a discipline I need.

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Saturday, October 22, 2011

Philemon, Part 1

To Philemon our beloved fellow
worker and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church
in your house:

Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God always when I
remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that
you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the
sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good
thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and
comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been
refreshed through you.

(Philemon 1:1-7 ESV)

Several years ago, a friend of mine bet my youth group that
if any of them could recite Philemon from memory without making a mistake, he
would cut off his ponytail (which was about 12” long) and give it to them.One of the boys in the group took the
challenge and did it on the first try.

The letter begins with as a wonderful testimony of the love
between brothers and ends with a tender admonition from a disciple maker who
begs his dear friend to do the same.

First, let’s look at a brother remembering a dear
friend.

I don’t know if I’d be so eager to write some of these
things if I had such a “cloud of witnesses” watching on both ends.Paul isn’t alone.His protégé Timothy is with him.If I were Tim, I think I’d be kind of
jealous, though Paul says some of the same things about him.He tells Timothy, “As I remember your tears,
I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.”So maybe it wasn’t so bad.

He calls Philemon his “beloved fellow worker.”Again, if I were Apphia and Archippus, I’d be
upset.All they get is “our sister” and
“our fellow soldier.”To the whole
assembly, he offers “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ.”More than anything else that
Paul says in all his letters, this one greeting is the most frequently
offered.Isn’t it funny that the things
we all need most from God are something we didn’t earn and something we can’t
produce?

We need to remember, in all our relationships, to offer a
gift our friends don’t deserve: we need to offer them Jesus.We also need to offer them something they can’t
produce in themselves: peace.But this
is a special kind of peace, because the word in Hebrew life and culture means
“wholeness.”I can’t think of anything
I’d rather offer a friend than wholeness – shalom.

When Paul finally gets down to what he wants to say, we
discover he is complimenting Philemon for doing exactly that.He’s offering them shalom.Paul says, “I hear of your love and faith in
Christ.”That is, word has come back to
Paul that Philemon offers this kind of love.How did he hear of it?Because
people Philemon touched were talking about it.The important thing about Philemon sharing his faith is not that it has
changed anyone’s mind, but rather that it has changed Philemon.You may say that
you don’t know Scripture well enough to tell people what they need to know
about the Gospel.But if you know
Jesus, even if you don’t know a single verse of Scripture, have all you need,
because “every good thing that is in you” is for the sake of Christ.Or put more simply, every good thing that is
in you is Christ in you.

All that you share of Christ with another comes back.Call it a boomerang if you like.But Paul shared Christ in an effective way
with Philemon, who in turn shared it with others.Now Paul has heard about Philemon’s faith
from people who came to know Christ because Philemon shared his faith with
them.And that encouraged and comforted Paul no end!

Dear friend in Christ!I’m going to say something selfish.I’m jealous to hear back from people I’ve never met about the way their
lives have been changed because you shared Christ with them.When I hear those things, it comforts and
blesses me deeply.And I derive much joy
and comfort from your love – not because I learn that you have loved me; that
is small potatoes in comparison with what it feels like when I learn that you
have loved Christ enough to export your faith.